imogenrose97's reviews
473 reviews

A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs
Did not finish book. Stopped at 5%.

The nine women writers one just completely infuriated meeee because it was non fiction, and it was talking about  Mary Wollstonecraft (Mary Shelley's mum!!!!). It mentions this friendship she had with a woman called Frannie, a romantic friendship that she wrote a whole book about a similar friendship that was really romantic. Then there was all this other context and her heart being broken when Frannie died and that she never got over it. But the author didn't take any of it seriously and only went on and on about how all these men she flirts with and might have been involved with and I was like lady stop straight washing her!!! It just made me so mad

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

This book was a far step from my normal genres and I spent each night while I was reading it, jittery with images of shadows watching from the dark with needlelike teeth. The characters were vivid and bold and made me so furious I could have screamed. Each pious hypocritical word rang true with what I know of the period of burning witches and ostracising the other.
Slewfoot/Samson's identity struggle was such a fun mystery to read, trying to work out who was telling him the truth and who was using him for their own gain was intriguing and perfect for reading as a buddy read. Though, once again, clear communication could have solved that problem pretty early on. 
Abitha was wild and strong and most importantly kind, even if she did not receive kindness herself, and had an incredible sense of right and wrong and constantly worked to be godly, hard as it was with the town and fucking Wallace being a bitch. I'm really not sure I would have been allowed to live and would likely have been burnt as a witch if I had lived back then.

I particularly enjoyed the depictions and visions of all gods as one, so many eyes watching humanity, different but one. 
Now though I truly enjoyed the ending and the just desserts received, something in me made me want the townsfolk to know and understand what is truly good, that their cruelty was not godly, that to look at something or someone different and decide devil without so much as a conversation is no way to be good (though correct for the time). I wanted their minds to be changed, for them to see, as the reverend did, that good and godly is about actions and kindness and questioning. That to be good or bad is not black and white. While I know that this would have taken waaaay too much writing and maybe wouldn't have been satisfying for anyone but me, someone understanding their wrongdoing is still my most perfect ending.

Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

Hiromi Kawakami is one of my just read authors, her writing holds a bewitching mood that is impossible to escape, each book I've read feels outside of time. While there might be recognisable signs and places, feelings and dreams, it feels completely removed from life, transporting you to somewhere beyond. This is highlighted in Dragon Palace in the breaking apart of taboo, from tentical porn adjacent stories to a younger brother drinking the milk of his sister. Though weird and typically wrong, because her writing feels outside of life it doesn't make you squirm as it would on a screen. None of it feels gratuitous either, it felt more like breaking apart the preconceived ideas of how life is to explore what's underneath. 
Though this was for sure not my favourite Kawakami, it still held the mystifying candour that I love so much.

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

2.0

I'm devastated to say that this Mary Oliver did not hold the magic of that Blue Horses (my first Oliver collection) held. Though there were a few truly exceptional poems, in particular Percy's First Visit (or some name similar), it fell flat for me beyond those few.

Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova

dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

 I felt the Paradise looming in the background of each line, hulking raw as a wound, each description more gruesomely human. Fleshy, chunky and wet with decay. Hefty. Wholy disgusting. Each of the employees no more than stick figures or ants, scurrying about completing worthless tasks to be done again tomorrow against another grim grey day turned to dim night.
I couldn't escape the feeling that the Paradise was about to shift its weight, make it known that it is living and breathing and that it does not care for nor shelter those who take shelter in its moist rooms. 
I wish it had not been so visceral. Take back the smell of sewage soaked popcorn. Erase the grease smudged glasses and the feeling you get when you leave the cinema to find it suddenly dark even though it feels like no time has passed. Hollow. Unreal. Like you've incorrectly loaded the wrong life, something is just a bit off.
I'm not sure I'll ever enter a cinema again without thinking of the Paradise and its Children, I'm not really very happy about it but I guess a fair price to pay for such an incredible book. 

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

5.0

Another book I read to have a light distraction from the chaos of moving and when I didn't have the capacity to read anything serious. This one however, was phenomenal, I love reading cozy queer fiction, especially when it features so many ridiculous lesbian tropes that feel hilarious because in all of the queer relationships around me, I get to see these things for real, including in my own. I spent the stressful parts not too stressed because I imagined I knew I was safe in the cozy atmosphere. Which is such a nice treat. The characters were well developed and fun and interesting and the whole thing was sprinkled with such toe curling cuteness that I was taken so far from where I was in the real world and into the flirtations of mages. Cannot wait to read the next book.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

3.0

I read this book to find some kindness and comfort in a period of unsettle. The story and the way that it was told was enjoyable but ultimately it fell flat for me because I wasn't convinced by I the execution of moral of the story. I'm  finding that this kind of short, supposedly punchy stories with a moral aren't really for me (thinking of Small Things Like These as a similar book type). Though this was definitely a good read for the period I was in and I would recommend it as a light wholesome book.

Eyes Guts Throat Bones by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

5.0

What a perfectly weird, sexy, gross mix of stories. Once again I was sucked in by the promise of queer tales and once again I was oh so pleased! A running theme in my favourite short story collections the stories were written in different formats from a play to a diary entry. The stories were in turns hilarious or silly or dirty or gross and the way of listing the stories out of order made the reading experience more fun.  The writing was visceral and sharp and filled with poetry like prose. The imagery throughout evoked a feeling of being out of place, like something isn't quite right.

I recommend this book for fans of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield and God's of Want by K-Ming Chang.

Mina's Matchbox by Yōko Ogawa

3.75

A strange little book with incredible imagery that has stayed in my mind in the month since I've read it. 

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

5.0

 It was frustrating for me to read the first half of the book because I sort of understood where our narrator was coming from but because I've done a lot of therapy and I'm and ADULT I worked out that she was spiralling. I really struggled because it frustrates me when people haven't worked out what's wrong in the same time that I have.

What made Rebecca bad? Was it her wish to live a full life outside of the confines of society? She was bad for cheating on her husband, sure. But was she bad in how free she wanted to be. She only wanted to live. She only wanted to be treated as a man, act like one and have the respect a man would. 
We are expected to hate her and I did; until a pause and thought came through of what if that were me? What if I was born back then and smart enough to think outside of societal expectations, would I have made the same deals? The answer is undoubtedly that I would not because I would never have grown to be as bold as her. I would have quietly seethed and bitched in lonely corners about the tirade of man. So in the end I am more impressed by her than mad, she made a space for herself using the only tools she had and raced to the end of her life spectacularly. 

How a book published so long ago speaks both to society today and that of it's time is impressive, a classic for a reason.